DOJ efforts to block whistleblower's award rejected

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Whistle-Blower Is Awarded $1.6 Million

A former drug sales representative who became a whistle-blower has been awarded $1.6 million for bringing a drug marketing fraud to light, despite efforts by the Justice Department to prevent his receiving the money.

But in the same ruling, a federal judge criticized the former sales representative, James Marchese, for not bringing the scheme to light earlier, given that he thought that cancer patients were being harmed as a result of the fraud.

Mr. Marchese’s case, which was described in an October article in The New York Times, drew attention because prosecutors had rarely argued that a whistle-blower should be denied any portion of the funds recovered from a lawsuit he or she initiated.

To do so, prosecutors must show that a whistle-blower was the planner or initiator of the scheme involved; otherwise he or she is legally entitled to receive 15 to 25 percent of any funds recovered by the government. The precise figure is determined by a whistle-blower’s contribution to the case.

In a ruling after a two-day hearing last month in Seattle, Judge Marsha J. Pechman of Federal District Court found that prosecutors had failed to prove that Mr. Marchese was the initiator of a scheme at his former employer, Cell Therapeutics. In April, the company agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle charges that it had bilked Medicare out of that much money in connection with the sale of a cancer drug, Trisenox.

At the hearing, Mr. Marchese and his lawyers argued that he should receive 25 percent, about $2.6 million. Among other things, Mr. Marchese maintained that the government would never have had a case without him.

NY Times - Read Full Article

Why ask why?

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1. the Goodling attorneys are doing their bestest

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2. Their recent 'efforts' to protect the oxycotin executives from jail sentences was just as strange.